Slashdot Mirror
Australia Considering P2P 'Three Strikes' Law
caitsith01 writes "ITNews reports that Australia's ever-unpopular Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, has foreshadowed new action by the Australian Government to crack down on illegal file sharing under the guise of promoting the digital economy. Options apparently being considered include the controversial and previously reported French three-strikes approach and an approach which sounds suspiciously like New Zealand's even more dubious guilty-upon-accusation approach to filesharing. Needless to say, although the Government is consulting with 'representatives of both copyright owners and the Internet industry in an effort to reach an industry-led consensus on an effective solution,' arguably the most significant group — ordinary Internet users — are not being consulted. Senator Conroy is the man behind the crusade to 'protect' Australians from the horrors of the Internet with a mandatory, government-run blacklist, an effort which recently earned him the title of Internet Villain of the Year for 2009."
Lets hope The Pirate Party of Australia comes to the rescue here.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
The downloading is rarely the issue. The issue is the liberties and justices sacrificed by lobbied and next-to-corrupt politicians in the name of saving the record industry. The consequences of this will not stop at pirates, it spans over the entire society, effectively undermining the freedom and security enjoyed by all of us. Is it really worth it? Some people seem to think so. I don't and I don't give a shit about filesharing.
Don't be crazy anymore!
Few people say it is okay. A lot of people however say that you won't manage to prevent people from file sharing unless you control Internet and personal computers completely and that would have a huge cost to society. Therefore, if filesharing becomes such a serious problem that it prevents artists from getting a decent pay (this has still to be proved though), the remuneration of artists has to go through a different system.
It looks like people are wanting to just get free stuff, but the claim is different : they say that trying to protect a revenue stream based on the control and production of copies, in a world where making copies is basically free, is nonsensical and counter-productive.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I am forced to somehow like the idea of a three strikes system. We really should ban ISPs when they interfere with P2P traffic for three times.
On slashdot? It's the guilty-upon-accusation bit that bothers people here more.
It's the "Every kind of P2P is people violating copyrights" idea that idiot politicians have that bothers people here on slashdot.
I don't care if 90% of the people using a certain protocol are using it to swap the latest transformers movie because I'm part of the 10% using it for legitimate purposes.
Should I be denied my right to disseminate information because of that 90%?
If 90% of the people in your apartment complex are growing their own pot and you're part of the 10% that is not should you lose your right to not have the police kick down your door without a warrant?
I feel exactly the same way.
Illegal file sharing is wrong and there should be consequences for it. It is however not theft. Theft involves taking something away from another. With filesharing, ownership and possession remain with the originator.
What is theft is the extension of copyright, erosion of fair use and bypassing of the courts that media companies are bribing governments around the world to achieve. And its not theft from an individual, it is theft from the public domain, it is theft from us all.
These 3 strikes laws are intended to circumvent the courts and allow media companies to extort real people into paying them with no burden of proof or legal recourse.
They shot first.
How long is copyright today? 70 years? 90? 150?
Companies are stealing our culture. Perpetual extension of copyright is theft from society.
Compared to the artists of the days when copyright was 20-something years, today's artists don't contribute more to society, yet they demand many times the protection. They want to get this for free -- they've never offered any form of payment, no return on investment for society.
When my grandmother was a child, she heard a song. If I were to listen to her sing me that song, she'd be breaking the letter of the law. Compared to a few brittany spears songs, the theft of every copyrighted work for 50 years is a much greater crime.
It's been a long time.
That's not payment. Society at large doesn't gain anything from being able to have 150 year copyrights. It's only freeloaders who want to sell dead people's works as their own who are crying that copyright needs to be longer.
The "Happy Birthday" song first appeared in print in 1912. In other words, before nearly every defining moment of the 20th century. Despite that, it is a copyrighted song -- The Time-Warner Corporation owns the rights and charges $10,000 per performance in royalties.
So you're a filthy disgusting criminal. YOU. I know you sang the song publicly and didn't pay Time-Warner their due. Why are you such a filthy disgusting criminal? Why don't the long long long dead writers of "Happy Birthday" deserve compensation for their work?
It's been a long time.
How about governments tackle the more important crime of the film and music industries running a cartel? It is things like region encoding which allows the media companies to run protected cartels in the various ways they've carved up the plant and where people can buy DVD's etc. from - this screws over consumers. Or is that the media companies give very generous amounts of campaign money to the politicians in different countries, and the politicians actually don't care and turn a blind eye about consumers?
Take Nobody's Word For It.